modern football cards question

iamthegreatcornholio

Do you guys know of any modern football products where you have a fighting chance of getting at least 50% of your money back?

I bought a box of ’06 Donruss Elite because they looked nice, and a $100 box yielded about $15 worth of cards. Is the “house-edge” this high on all modern products?

envoy98

Exquisite is about it. Even bad pulls command some decent money. But it depends on how much you get soaked for on the box.

Triple Threads baseball was pretty good...

Topps Heritage baseball has been the closest thing to a "guaranteed" winner I've ever found. Other than that, the "house edge" as you call it, is pretty high on all modern products, hence the reason I quit busting.

XanaduNow

It's just not worth it to me. Especially when you consider the high insert-ratio for rookies. Sure, the serial-numbered rookies are worth more but if you get one every 10-20 boxes and the card costs as much as one box ... well, it's just simple math.

I'd much rather bust older wax and hope for a big payday after grading. If nothing else, at least I'll have fun with the older stuff and those guys are already in the HOF.

iamthegreatcornholio

Thanks for the input guys. I buy a few boxes a year, and I was just checking to make sure I'm not missing some great product out there.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but "game-used" stuff is worthless. It's frustrating when it's compared with autographed cards (i.e. 2 game-used or autographed cards per box) For every autographed card out there, there are probably 50+ game-used cards...

envoy98

just noticed your title was "football" and I put in two baseball boxes. don't mind me...I just learned to read.

For football, I've had decent luck with finest and leaf limited. Topps chrome is a waste, Classics can be good if you hit an auto of a HOF'er and Elite is only good if you get a rookie or auto from the 1st round. Unfortunately, 99% of the ones you get are 3rd rd+ or undrafted. Lots of people still swear by topps base brand. The rookie photo shoot autos are always a big hit and they seem to fall with decent regularity, plus the HOF autos you can pull each year are very collectible, albeit difficult to pull @ 1:43,000 packs)

The thrill of hitting the jackpot is always worth some premium, but you miss far more often than you hit.

ctsoxfan

I can't believe no one mentioned the big 2 in modern football - SP Authentic, and Playoff Contenders. This is where a lot of the big dollar pulls come from, in the form of autographed rookie cards (auto patches in SPA). Trouble is, I am not endorsing either brand as one where you could buy one box (for $100-$125 when they first come out) and get a 50% return on your money. You could pull 4 terrible no-name autos from a Contenders box (like I often do) or, you could have pulled a Roethlisberger or Manning auto RC and done quite well. This is the case especially with SPA, where I have pulled some nice auto patch RC's (some collectors feel these are the "best" football rookie issues) that have sold for $200-$500 each, but I have also ripped boxes and gotten back maybe $20 worth of junk.

iamthegreatcornholio

Thanks guys for the info. I completely forgot about SP Authentic and Playoff Contenders.

ToppsCo1lector

The majority of modern football I buy are singles both graded/non graded. My best recent buy was a SGC 98 Topps Tim Brown rookie, that I bought for under 5 bucks. For a future HOF'er(in my mind anyways) that's a steal.